https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/business/economy/coronavirus-economy.html?searchResultPosition=2
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Shutdown Spotlights Economic Cost of Saving Lives
Is the tremendous economic cost worth saving a life? This is not the first time this question has been asked. The coronavirus has surfaced this moral question as the efforts to slow down the virus have essentially halted economic activity. Can you put a number amount next to the life of someone? Economists have long struggled with the trade-off between economic well-being and the health of a society. Few economists are willing to step forward and answer this controversial question. The priority of the Trump administration during the coronavirus crisis has been to keep Americans safe and healthy. However, there is a point where shutting down the economy is more damaging to Americans in the long run than trying to stop the spread of this disease. Millions of people are out of work and do not have the funds to survive off of. Economist from Vanderbilt University Kip Viscusi stated, "making people poorer has health consequences too." Do you believe there is a point where efforts to stop the coronavirus by an economic shutdown are more harmful than helpful?
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6 comments:
I think it's absurd to compare human life to the well-being of the economy. People need to understand that without healthy people in the economy, there are no grounds to re-open business until things get significantly better, which will take a lot of time. If health experts say that the peak of the pandemic has not been met yet, then there is a long way to go. I don't think there is any point where shutting the economy can be harmful if it can result in more cases and revert the flattening of the curve.
Human life trumps economic performance, full stop. There is absolutely no justification for valuing economic growth and the performance of the stock market (which matters far more for large corporations than for individuals) over actual human lives. If one has to prioritize the economy over compassion, I think of it this way: if the number dead balloons because restrictions are lifted, that will damage the economy far worse -- and it will not be nearly as easy to bounce back from.
Additionally, many of the economic impacts to large corporations that employ vast numbers of people could be absorbed if CEOs, etc, took pay cuts rather than laying people off or cutting wages to the lowest-paid employees.
This is a very loaded question in terms of ethics. There may be harm done due to the efforts in stoping the coronavirus, but like Sophia mentioned, the health and safety of the people matters more. There have been many examples in history where people put economics and money above the health and safety of the citizens and it has never turned out well in the long-run. The first thing that needs to be prioritized is health, and then afterwards, without damaging more health and safety, contain the impact of the blow to the economy in any possible way.
I agree with the comments above, there is not a possibility of a healthy economy if we don't have healthy people first. I do believe that yes, it is "expensive" to help sick humans, but I don't think it is anywhere comparable to our economy. I feel that if more efforts were put towards helping individual lives and science rather than helping the economy, it would eventually help grow a healthy economy in the long run. I feel that the economy is important, but not as important as helping humans stay alive. The economy has been through rough times and I think it will eventually get back to normal in the long run even though things will be struggling for a while beforehand if it means keeping more people healthy.
I would absolutely support the idea that there is no case for saying that there is a point in which the economy is more important than human health. But perhaps there was, that would damage the economy in the long run because the confidence of consumers to invest in spend would be drastically hurt because they would have a much higher level of uncertainty due to the fact that there would be a dollar amount that would make all there work obsolete. Therefore there would be much more damage done in the long run if the short run economy is seen to be more important than peoples physical health.
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